Little Monkey

Deception - Key Questions

• Why do we lie?
• Who lies? How much?
• How do we do it?

Why we lie

Who lies and how often?

But is it so bad?

• Well I argue not
• We saw out little monkey tricking his co-monkeys out of a tasty bird’s egg
• That’s right up there with animals that use tools

Dunbar’s Number

Introducing Mind-space

The Power of Mind-space

For any AI geeks out there… 💛

• It’s essentially the same idea as embeddings in vectorspace in LLMs

• But we do it WAY better, and potentially faster!

What’s the point?

• It’s not just really cool (it is!)
• It could offer us new ways to understand variability in Social Cognitive ability
• And understand some of the ‘magic’ abilities we share with cheeky monkeys

Systematic Observation in Natural Settings

• Street Psychology
• Observing behavior without interference
• Identifying patterns and anomalies
• Real-life Psychological Profiling
• Inferring meaning and motive in everyday behaviour

I did some people-watching on the telly

BBC Horizon - A Week Without Lying

Goldsmiths Link

Forensic Psychology Unit

Thank you

Any Questions?

But I think I forgot something…

Yes. The subject I mostly teach…

I bet no other Uni gave you a Research Methods Lecture at their open day!